A huge congratulations and well done to St John the Baptist Church and residents in Colerne for winning a SILVER AWARD in the annual national competition for their Colerne Parish Magazine.
The team of volunteers beat off stiff competition to take the second highest award for the the best parish magazine in the country which is organised by the Association of Church Editors.
The magazine is produced by volunteers - Phil Chamberlain who has a background in journalism and is a researcher at the University of Bath, Liz House who is a professional editor and graphic designer and local residents as they have some very talented photographers, artists and writers in their local community.
The A5 magazine is delivered free to 1,200 homes monthly with profits going towards St Johns and has been running in some form for more than a century though Phi and Lizzy have only been editing it for two years. They took over when Peter Wilson, who had been at the helm for many years and was a stalwart of the church, sadly passed away.
Phil and Liz said, "We are both very proud to have been given a silver award which recognises the team effort needed to produce the magazine each month.
"In this changing media landscape, parish magazines remain a very important and permanent part of a community's identity. We take seriously our role in in helping record what happens in Colerne. We have been lucky enough to tell some brilliant stories about our lovely Cotswold community and we look forward to telling many more in the years to come".
Sadly, the awards ceremony couldn't go ahead last weekend because of the national rail strike action but hopefully it will be rearranged for the Autumn.
Well done everyone - an amazing achievement for which you should all feel very proud!